Review: Everest Poker

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Everest Poker
Network	Everest
Max. Bonus	100
Bonus percent	100%
Homepage	http://www.everestpoker.com
Download software	Everest Poker
Ratings
Software	8
Traffic tournaments	6.5
Traffic ring	3
Soft competition	10
Bonuses	5
Support	9
Average rating	6.9

Everest Poker

Everest Poker is the ideal place for No Limit Hold'em micro to mid stakes player. If you don't fall into this category, I'm pretty sure you won't find anything interesting here. Otherwise, read on.

Software & Technical Support:

Above is the main Everest Poker lobby. First thing that you might notice is the rather original design of the software. It's easy on the eyes, transparent, and, despite offerring quite a lot of options - very practical. The buttons are very large which makes them very easy to click. At the top of the lobby you can choose which tables you would like to view - Real Money, Summit Points (more on that later in the "Bonuses" section) or Free Play tables. A very nice feature is that you can view your account balance at the bottom of the lobby without having to access the Cashier (some may consider this a drawback, especially if you play with many spectators behind your back, but I guess that's relative

).

Another useful feature is the "Take Any Open Seat" option. First choose your game (Fixed, No Limit or Pot Limit), then pick your stakes (the range varies depending on what game type you chose above) and finally the max number of players at a single table (Heads up, 6max or full ring [10 max]). You have now filtered out all the tables matching your description. Now, simply click "Take any open seat" and wait for a seat to free up (if there aren't any right now), which will immediately be reserved for you - you will be informed about this through a pop-up window, which you have to respond to within about 2 minutes - otherwise you lose your seat.

This system is not without it's drawbacks, however. First of all, you can't choose to wait in line to any specific table, which is a huge drawback to me. When sing the "Take Any Open Seat" option you will be given the first open Seat that meets your defined criteria, and that's it. You can't choose what tables you want to to sit at/which tables you would like to stay clear of. You're stuck with what you get (well, you can always refuse to take the seat and wait for another one, hoping that this time it will be closer to what you want..). The system has a small bug, too: if you click "Take Any Open Seat," and no seat opens up for longer than 2-3 minutes (this is very rare), the Search freezes up, missing any new seats that might be available. The only way to solve this is by clicking the "Searching" button, canceling the search, and then running it again. This is not as disturbing as it might sound, since you will usually find a seat in less than 10 seconds. Worth knowing about it though.

A "Game History" is available at the bottom of the lobby. It's a very detailed listing of all the hands that you've ever played on EverestPoker. Here is how you use this feature:

1. Choose the date (or date range, if you're not sure) of the session you're interested in.
2. You will get a list of all the tables played during that period. Choose the one you are interested in. If you are not sure which table it is, take a closer look to the right of the screen - each table contains info about the amount of money you bought in when sitting down, AND the amount of money you left with (taking into account all re-buys). This should help identify the table you want (especially if it was a table where you did really bad, or really well).
3. You'll get a list of all the hands played at that table during that specific session. Each hand contains info about how much you lost/won with it, which helps identify your target.
4. Click the hand "number" to the right to access the details.

The hands themselves are well documented. All neccesary info is there (hole cards included!). I find them very nice and easy to go through. However, once you use the "Copy to clipboard" option at the top and try to paste the hand into MSN, or any other place outside of EverestPoker, it won't look that nice anymore (I don't recommend showing it to your friends like this, always use the Hand Listing System on LiquidPoker!)

It should also be noted that there is a Player to Player transfer option (available in the 'Cashier' under 'Transfer'). You can use it to transfer both Real and Play money. The minimum/maximum amount that can be transferred is 50$/500$ in Real Money and 500/5,000 in Play Chips. However, you can never send more than half your current balance, be it Real or Play money. New players are restricted to only 1 P2P transfer per 24 hours.

IMPORTANT: If your real money account balance is 0$ and someone makes a player->player deposit to your account, you CANNOT cashout. The only ways to cashout is either by completing a certain number of raked hands (the exact number depends on the amount that was transferred to you) or by making your own real money deposit (doesn't matter how large it is).

Tables look pretty nice. The buttons are big -just like in the lobby- which reduces the chance of a misclick. In the middle of the table a descrete note informs us of the current [pot + bets] size (you can turn this feature off in the "Options section" of the Lobby - bottom right). The avatars are easy on the eye and not too colorful, so they don't distract you from the action (you can turn them off in the Options section, too). In the top right corner we can quickly access the hand history for that specific table.

If you never play more than 1-2 tables in a session, you might find the "Detach chat" option useful. It allows you to place the Chat window anywhere you want, and to regulate it's size conviniently (you can make it as large as your screen if you like, don't recommend it tho!). From a multitabling point of view you should be happy, too; EverestPoker allows you to play up to eight (8) tables at once. It's also possible to resize the tables however you see fit (just use your mouse to grab and drag any corner of a table). If you right click a player's name by the table and choose "Note," you can add a text note describing the play style (or antything else you like) of thise opponent. After that, you will see a small 'notepad' icon by the players nickname, which makes it easy to identify the people you've created a note for.

As for drawbacks. The 'set bet size' slider can be very irritating, especially when you're multitabling. Sometimes you'll be sizing a bet to, say, 50$, and just when you were about to hit ENTER (or click "bet") you have to react at another table, which pops up, resetting your slider at the first table. As if this wasn't enough, sometimes you will need to chaotically click around with your mouse to get the slider working again... very disturbing... not to me though, since I use the numeric pad on my keyboard to manually input the bet/raise amounts. You should start doing that too, if you aren't.

Furthermore, any rebuys we make at the table are not applied until the beginning of the next hand. This too can be very irritating if you're playing more than 3-4 tables, here is an example: You are playing at table "X". You fold your hand on the flop, but there are still 2+ players in the pot, so the hand goes on. You rebuy to the full amount and move on to different tables, hopping around between them. You suddenly look at table X and see you're stack isn't full, and you're not sure whether you did rebuy or not. So you rebuy again, and you get an annoying error message saying "You can't rebuy at this table. You're stack is full!" You need to click "OK" to make that message dissapear, of course. This can be pretty annoying to multitablers, trust me.

As for Technical Support, I think it's very good. To contact them via e-mail, click "Help" in the lower right corner of the lobby and choose "Player Support." This opens the Tech Support Contact form (in a new browser window) - keep in mind, that it can take up to 30 seconds for this form to open.. don't click "Player Support" more than once though, just wait. Now just fill out the form and choose the most appropriate title for your inquiry. You should get a comfirmation e-mail in about 2-3 seconds, which is very good (at the other pokerrooms you don't always know if your e-mail has reached it's destination, especially if you're not getting an answer for a longer period). Personally, I've always gotten an answer in 8-12 hours tops, though quite often it would be much much faster (less than 2 hours even). I do recall one or two instances where it took them a bit over 24 hours to answer, but that's pretty much as slow as it gets.

The answers I got were always comprehensible and precise. In most cases you will never need to send any follow-up questions, since all will be clear by their first response. The 'consultants' are very polite and helpful - they really seem to care

As I see it, the only drawback Tech Support has is it's inability to be reached by phone. I guess you can live with that, given how quickly they respond to e-mails.

Rating for Software: 8
Rating for Mutltabling capacity/options: 8.5
Rating for tech support: 9 (I take one point away for lack of a Tech Support phoneline)

Cash Games:

You're not going to find anything beside Texas Hold'em on EverestPoker. They did offer Omaha and 7 stud in the past, but right now they are strictly focused on Hold'em. Traffic is quite high, especially at the lower stakes. Peak hours are during the evening (GMT time zone), since most of the players are from Europe.

Texas Hold'em:

Fixed Limit:
Stakes starting at 0.02$/0.04$ up to 10$/20$. Traffic is very low. You can usually find some games running at the lower limits (below 2/4$), but higher than that and you're in for a dissapointment.

No Limit:
This is where the action takes place. Stakes from 0.02$/0.02$ up to 10$/10$ (keep in mind that at EverestPoker, 1/1$ is NL100, 10$/10$ is NL1000 etc.).
There are always many tables to choose from regardless of the hour you log in.. during peak hours the traffic is comparable to that of sites like PokerStars. Doesn't look so good at the higher stakes (NL200 and up), though you can still find 5-15 tables running, depending on the time. This is one of the main reasons EverestPoker is a great place for Hold'em micro/low stakes players who are grinding their way up.

Pot Limit:
Available stakes: .25/.25, 1/1, 3/3 and 5/5$. There are almost no tables running there (usually 2-3 tables TOTAL for all stakes). Very weak.

Rating for game selection: 1 (only game type you can play there is No-Limit Texas Hold'em, and only on the lower stakes)
Rating for traffic: 3 (low fixed limit traffic and virtually non-existant pot limit traffic)

Tournaments:

SNG:
EverestPoker offers SNG's in Fixed Limit and No Limit Texas Hold'em. 2, 6 and 10 people max. Available buy-ins range from 0.50+0.05$ to 500+50$ for No Limit and up to 50+5$ for Fixed Limit. As is the situation with Cash Games, most of the ation takes place at the lower-buyin tables (up to 5+.50$ for NL). Fixed Limit SNG traffic is really weak, regardless of the limits. Players start out with 1,000 chips, blinds 5/10 growing every 10 minutes. There are no Turbo SNG's or anything like that. I would not recommend Everest Poker to Sit&Go players, unless you are just starting out and want to get a feel for it at the lower limits (which do have good traffic).

MTT:
EverestPoker offers quite a lot of Multi Table Tournaments. Besides freerolls (not too many of these here), they offer various MTT's with a max number of participants starting at 20 all the way up to several thousand. Buyins starting at 1+0$, up to 100$+10$. Once in a while there are 300$+30$ MTT's available for those who prefer higher stakes, but since there are almost no 'big fish' at EverestPoker, these tournaments usually get canceled before they even start

Once a week a 10,000$ guaranteed is held (100+10$ buyin). Not the same as the Sunday Million at PS, but it's a start

There are two ways to get into an MTT: either pay the required buy-in in US dollars, or it's equivilant in Summit Points (check out the "Bonus" section to get more info on those). Once in a while EverestPoker holds Satellites to big events such as the WSOP or EPT. There are also some Satellites running which let you qualify for the 10,000$ guaranteed. It should also be noted that you can play in an MTT/Satellite of your liking for 'free' if you have a valid Token (you can win those in some of the freerolls.. sometimes EverestPoker will hand out Tokens to their most active players, so keep an eye out for all e-mails from them).

In 99% of all MTT's players start out with 1,000$ chips, blinds 5/10, growing every 10 minutes. I heared of EverestPoker organizing tournaments with blinds growing every 15 and even 20 minutes, never played in any of them though and don't know when and why they are held.

AVALANCHE:
The Avalanche Poker League is one of Everest's newest features. Composed out of a total of 5 phases, the league is planned to last for 9 months total. Once you complete one of the phases, you automatically qualify for the next one. You are also allowed to start out playing directly from any phase you want (except the last one - you have to qualify for it directly from the previous phase). This will cost you extra of course. For example: the buy-in to the first phase costs 3+.30$ or 10+1$ (depending on whether you want to play Rebuy or not - rebuy is cheaper). However, if you wanted to start out at Phase four, skipping all the previous ones, you'd have to pay 5000+300$. The league is going to culmniate in Offline finals, and the total price pool is gonna come close to 1 million USD.

More info about Avalanche:
http://www.everestpoker.com/en/promo/tournament/avalanche.html

For a complete EverestPoker MTT schedule, click here:
http://www.everestpoker.com/en/tournament/current-schedule.html

Rating for Tournament Selection: 6,5
Rating for MTT Traffic: 6
Rating for SNG Traffic: 7

Toughness of competition

This is _THE_ reason for playing at EverestPoker. As far as I can tell, players at Everest are worse than those playing at ANY other online Pokerroom (PartyPoker, Bossmedia network and Prima network can't even begin to compare!). They are extremely loose, have no understanding WHATSOEVER of how to play the game, they have absolutely no feel for what is going on at the table... this is true all the way up to NL400. It's really difficult to describe just how BAD players at EverestPoker are... you'll need to play there a bit and judge for yourself. All in all, if NL2 up to NL200 is what you play and your main goal is to increase your bankroll, I really doubt there is any better place for you to be.0

Rating for competition: 10 (where "1" is "very good" and "10" is very bad)

Bonuses:

Summit Points Program (SP)
You can use those to get into various MTT's. Everest is also planning on releasing an SP store soon, where you can exchange your SP's for different items. There are also tables where you can play for Summit Points (just choose the right tab at the top of the Lobby to get a list of all available tables and stakes). Here is how you receive SP's: For each 1$ that your table generates in rake, all players at that table receive one (1) Summit Point (you don't need to play the hand, it's enough that you were dealt into it). The first two players to sit at the table will receive double that amount (2SP's for ever 1$ generated by the table in rake) - this is EverestPoker's way of encouraging people to occupy seats at empty tables. This program is really nothing special... for example, you need to pay 27500 SP's to play in the weekly 10,000$ guaranteed (which would otherwise cost you 100+10$). it's good to be able to play some MTT's for 'free' once in a while though, so I guess you can't complain.

New Player Bonus:
New players get a 100$ bonus upon creating their first account. You then need to convert the bonus into real money by earning a certain amount of SPs - for each Summit Point point you earn, you convert 0.07$ of the bonus, which is sick, especially for micro stakes players - it would take them ages to take advantage of that bonus. Good thing though is that EverestPoker only rakes 4% from the pot (unlike the standard 5% in most other pokerrooms), which is great for the low stakes players.

Referr a Friend:
For each person you referr and who opens an EverestPoker account PLUS makes a deposit, you get 50$ bonus (which needs to be converted into real money at the same rate the "New Player Bonus" is converted - 0.07$ for each SP point earned).

Other Bonuses:
Once in a while you will send you an e-mail (providing you agreed for them to do so - check your Options in the lobby) with a Bonus Code that can be activated through the "Bonus" section (bottom left corner of the Lobby). These bonuses have a certain expiration period (usually around 30 days), and they can be converted into real money in two ways: Standard - 0.07$ for each 1SP earned, and the "Lump Sum" system: you need to earn a certain amount of Summit Points (for example: 500) after which the entire bonus is converted into real money and credit to your account. It should be noted that the amount of bonus money you get depends on how much rake you generated for Everest in the past - the more rake, the bigger the bonus. Oh, and don't try to exchange bonus codes with your friends - it won't work

Rating for Bonuses: 5

Summary:

EverestPoker is not one of the best pokerrooms out there, and is not going to become one in a very long time (if ever). However, the traffic and extremely weak competition make this the ideal place for your average No Limit Hold'em micro/low limit grinder. Just give Everestpoker a try, you won't regret it.

Reviewed by: marknazzal

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